Out of Control
by wheelies
Summary: With a vigilante loose on LA's criminal population, the team has to work fast as the holidays approach.
1. Chapter 1

Out of Control

By: wheelies

Rating: T

Summary: With a vigilante loose on LA's criminal population, the team has to work fast as the holidays approach.

Characters/Pairings: Kensi/Nate

Warnings: Swearing, and otherwise Nothing worse than you would see on the actual show

Spoilers: Nothing yet

Notes: This is just the set up/intro Chapter. I promise to actually get to the action in the next chap.

I.

He was angry as all hell and so was she. They'd left the OSP without so much as look in each other's general direction, quiet rage in Nate's eyes and a furious, cutting, edge to Kensi's purposeful stride as the oak doors slammed shut on them.

By now, there was nothing left to say or do but make their way to their respective cars in the back parking garage, fuming as rage did away with all reason.

Park-to-go cards were swiped viciously through the terminal, and the growling engines of the freshly-washed vehicles served as the perfect soundtrack for them to go off into the clear, humid, night, side-by-side, yet worlds apart.

II.

Kensi toyed with the hem of her dress, slightly looser than she'd been when she and Drake, the absolutely gorgeous pool boy from her apartment complex had hit the town for a night of booze and good beats.

She hadn't drunk too much (Kensi had kept a strict one-drink rule since the incident at Fort Worth in Junior Year), yet something about the pumping, indie-rock/punk/whatever else it was and the intoxicating smell of alcohol mixed with perfume and sweat, not to mention the feel of Drake's million-dollar body against hers, had her spiked, and just now, when they'd retired from the night of club-hopping, was the high beginning to wear off.

It was probably only spare hours until sunrise, and she'd be due to work soon, but for now, Kensi was content to lie in the backseat, and old beach towel thrown over her as Drake- with his shirt off, showing off smooth olive skin- navigated LA's late night roads.

She was sleepier than was probably very good, and everything was coming off far blurrier than she remembered. It was either a glint of a beer bottle in the front seat cupholder or a star high above the skyline that she noticed right before she drifted off.

III.

"Miss? Excuse me, Miss?"

Kensi shifted in her makeshift backseat bed, her eyes exploding with neon reds and blues, a blurry dark figure standing above her.

"Huh?", she grunted, blinking at the lights and willing her eyes to focus. She was stiff and sore and felt like she'd been beaten up and left in an alley or something to that effect.

"Miss? You're going to need to get out of the car."

There was a badge in her face, LAPD with beefy fingers surrounding the cover, blocking her from seeing his face.

"What'd I do?", she asked haplessly, forcing herself up and tossing the towel on the passenger seat.

"Let's figure that out.", he replied, still a voice swimming in exploding colors and lights.

The cop held something to her face, small and dark, and waited, before chuckling to himself.

"Hey, Valdez, she's fine. Guess one of our lovebirds wised up before goin' out.", the voice called.

Kensi blinked, bringing her world into into blunt, obvious lines. Cop cars surrounded what looked like a checkpoint station, swarming with officers who had their windows rolled down and their guns hanging carelessly, as though they had only responded to the call out of boredom. She thought she saw Drake in the back of one of the cruisers, his mouth moving with words she couldn't understand.

IV.

The precinct was brightly lit, decorated with a fluorescent wall of green and pink paper advertising family picnics and days when the shooting range was free beside a wall of old, yellowed "Wanted" posters from the Bureau. The officers were mostly younger, fresh out of the Academy, Kensi would guess, more of them clothed in American Eagle rather than Sears, tossing paper balls into the recycling rather than filling out case reports.

Officer Valdez, the cop who'd given her a ride back, the chauvinistic pig he was, had tossed Kensi her purse on his way to In N Out Burger, muttering something about how women never got no smarter in his Alabama drawl. _Sure pal_, Kensi though to herself, digging for her phone in the mess of receipts and wrappers.

She hit 3 on speed dial, probably not quite yet thinking straight as she listened to Nate's cell ring.

V.

Shrill rings brought Nate out of a fitful sleep, the sheets clutched between his fists while a soft breeze whistled through his bedroom windows.

He felt for his phone on the shelf beside his bed, effectively knocking a row of cheap Greatest Hits albums and Meditation tapes off the rack.

Absently, he pushed talk, too groggy to consider caller ID, and pissed at whoever might have found it funny to call at four in the morning.

"What?"

"Nate? Um...It's Kensi...and I-"

"No."

Nate sighed. If anything, he told himself, Kensi needed to realize that a cavalry wasn't going to come running every time her impulsive stupidity had her cornered.

VI.

"Damn it!"

A resounding thwack signaled the end to Kensi's (technically, part of Hetty's grab bag) phone, which shattered to pieces inches from where an officer was sipping at a cream soda big gulp, oblivious to his surroundings.

"Hey, what the hell, lady?", he snapped, aiming her a "Chill Out" look.

She glared back at him, fuming over Nate's superhuman ability to screw nearly every plausible situation over. Couldn't he just get the hell over himself and man up?

"Excuse me, Miss, we can't let you behave in a destructive manner in the station. You're gonna have to wait outside", a young woman with her sun-kissed beach girl hair tied back into a loose bun interrupted Kensi's mental lashing at the entire male race.

The officer motioned towards the glass doors to the empty parking lot sparkling with bits of broken beer bottles that had been smashed over a parking meter.

Kensi groaned inwardly. There were some battles you just didn't fight.

VII.

She figured she was clear on the other side of town, miles from her apartment and whole districts from the OSP office, no car, no phone, and probably looking like some overpriced hooker, standing on the corner of a police precinct.

A quick sweep revealed a small row of boutiques and specialty shops across the street, with a 7/11 hiding behind a six-foot fence holding in a tiny school building and a playground that had "safety violation" written all over it. There were dingy apartments to the left of the station, fenced with weather-battered graffiti murals, and an equally dirty YMCA hall to the right.

"Location, Location.", Kensi sing-songed, chuckling sarcastically as she took in the depth of the insane mess she was in. It was pretty fair to say a second date was completely out of the question for dear old Drake.

"Yeah. I mean, LAPD wants to make a dent on crime where it festers, according to the bureaucrats.", a masculine, honey-on-gravel voice replied.

"What-oh."

VIII.

Kensi's initial fright subsided into a slight relief as she realized the voice simply belonged to a uniformed officer, thumbs hooked in his belt loops as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. She turned to face him, surprised to find he was nothing like the Slurpee-sloshed college frat boys inside.

"Hi."

He was six two or three, dark hair cut into a professional yet rebellious style that left stray strands of regulation length dirty blond locks hanging in piercing hazel eyes. This wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind for LAPD. More like Abercrombie model, really.

"Officer Lucas Hamel, can I help you with something, Miss?"

"What makes you think I need help?", she replied, almost reflexively.

"Miss, you're dressed like some high-school prom queen in the middle of the crappiest neighborhood on the west coast. So either, you're here 'cause you don't want to be, or you're here because you're not exactly in John Law's good books. So, do I arrest you or what?", Lucas told her,a tiny grin cracking on his tanned face.

"Or What?"

IX.

She knew she was flirting, yet the desire to do so clearly won over rationale, and she let herself carefully toe the line between a seventh-grader in line for New Moon's premiere and the kickass agent she was.

Besides, just like in the Sheryl Crow song that she'd been forced to listen to in the back of Officer Valdez's cruiser, there was nowhere but up to go from here.

"Well, do you need a ride to a bus stop or a coffee or somethin'? I know it's LA and all, but its kinda cold out here.", Lucas said, kicking at an empty cup of cheap coffee that was lying crumpled at his feet.

Kensi shrugged. On any other day, she would have let the banter go on, just played a little more, but today, she wasn't in the mood for it. All she wanted was a hot shower and a pitcher of coffee, and the familiar weight of her gun at her side. _Forget Drake, Nate, and the biological mistakes called the male race, _she reminded herself.

Kensi vaugely wondered how long Drake had been on the job as she let him lead her to an inconspicuous silver car in the middle price range that was both clean enough not to attract rats, yet dirty enough to show signs of life.

If it had been any other day, she would have wondered why a cop had parked beside a meter across the street under a broken neon bookshop sign, clear out of sight of the up-to-date cameras circling the precinct like vultures.

X.

Lucas and Kensi stayed in the small-talk zone for the ride back to her apartment, sharing small anecdotes about the weather and roads. She let herself loosen up, genuinely chuckling at some of his jokes. Comparatively, they really weren't all that bad.

He turned on to her street, lined with cutesy little shops and their miniature parking lots, where tiny lights and inflatable Santas were beginning to take over.

"Know what I never got? Why the hell they never put up a giant blow-up menorah in some car dealer's lot. I mean, imagine the notice that would get.", he chuckled, pulling over to the curb beside a closed up little hot dog shack.

"All over the news. Listen, thank you, Officer Hamel.", Kensi replied, unclipping her seatbelt and giving Lucas the customary law enforcement "Job well Done" head bob.

Suddenly, a radio scanner buried in Lucas' backseat sputtered to life, bringing a static "all hands on deck" call to a suspicious death in Burbank.

"You're very welcome. Guess I'll have to get your name some other time, Miss. Duty calls."

Kensi nodded and headed for the door, where her ever-sour doorman regarded her with a "My job is hard enough already" glare.

If it had been any other day, Kensi might have asked why a cop had a scanner in the back, yet the warm lobby lights melted all of her questions away.

A/N- Continue? Drop it? TELL ME AND REVIEW!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I.

"Hey Nate, had a good night?", Callen chuckled, bouncing an NCIS stress ball on the tile beside him, eyes trained on the team psychologist as he came in.

Nate instinctively shifted back. There were two simple facts to Callen in the morning. The boyish smirk on his face rarely meant something good, especially if it was aimed his way.

To be honest, last night had sucked. He'd stayed up after Kensi's call semi-watching late-night TV ads for home gyms and fuzzy socks, drinking the last can of orange soda in his mini-fridge.

"Of course I had a good night. Uh, I have...stuff to do now.", he replied hastily pouring himself a cup of coffee.

"Kensi agree with that?", Sam teased, looking up from his memos with a look of pure amusement.

He glared at them.

"What, c'mon, man, I'm curious. You wanna come clean before we get called to your place of vehicular assault?", Callen added, laughter edging into his voice.

Nate turned down the hall, leaving the two agents in fits of silent laughter.

II.

He stayed in his office for a good long time, flipping through outdated Psychology Journals and reassembling his brain model between randomly checking Facebook statuses and signing off on documents that had been in his inbox for weeks.

It was comfortably mind-numbing, and kept his hands busy. Just what he needed while he tried to mentally sort out the crap going on between him and Kensi.

Maybe hanging up on her hadn't been the best idea. How had she gotten home last night?_ Oh my God, did she?_

Nate briefly paused, his hand hovering over the signature line. He hadn't seen her that morning, or heard back from her since the call. What if...

Slowly, his brain begun to connect the dots.

Kensi usually got to the office a a half-hour at least after the guys. There were no worries there.

And at this point, even he wouldn't have called himself back.

III.

"Morning.", Kensi mumbled, tossing her bag into the team's unofficial stuff pile and collapsing into her seat. She was sore and drowsy, feeling more like she'd overdosed on Advil and caught swine flu than the poster girl for "Competent, Capable, NCIS Agent".

If Drake hadn't decided to take some stupid pill, get dead drunk and go straight for a Checkpoint, maybe last night wouldn't have been nearly as bad as it was.

She'd gotten home close to sunrise, and slept for an hour before the insanely annoying Wolverine alarm clock Nate had given her for last year's Secret Santa woke her up. She'd pulled the least filthy articles of clothing from her hamper, quickly washed her hair, and headed for the parking garage, where she'd come to the sudden realization her keys were..._somewhere._

Needless to say, LA's leading cab company's (according to the phone book in her complex's lobby) stock had probably risen by a few points._ Stupid...greedy..._

Sam and G both regarded her with looks of concern, studying her as though she was some piece of evidence under a microscope.

"Hey, Kenz, if that piece of crap did something-", G began, obviously pumped for a confrontation, head snapped up in the direction of Nate's office.

"Ahem. Mr. Callen, perhaps it would be best if you just left her alone for now.", Hetty told him, slipping out of shadows as usual.

"Besides, boys", she said pointedly, "Eric's got a very interesting collage of gruesome crime scene photos upstairs. Perhaps we would actually like to go play CSI: Miami before your shifts end?"

"Right. Goin'. Bye, Hetty.", Sam sputtered.

IV.

"Murder in Burbank. Navy Reservist....let's see here...Johnathan Cornell, Sr. One kid, Johnny Jr., living with Mom in San Fransisco. She just ID'd the...what's left of the body a couple hours ago."

Eric's fingers flew over his touchpad, sending a series of smaller screens flying up to the display.

"Crime scene photos. Heard forensics is having a field day with this one."

"I'm not surprised.", G said soberly, sweeping over the demolished living room and shattered holiday decorations, topped off with a display he was pretty sure would make even the most sociopathic serial killers cringe.

"Okay, I'm sending up footage from the Red Light Cam across the street. See, it snapped a picture when this car sped through, but it got some of the house. Uh, Dom, make that guy beside the Camry a bit bigger. See him?"

The three agents nodded.

"I'd say he's our best lead. I mean, until forensics gets back. Maybe Vance'll call Abby in again." Eric shrugged.

"Get back to earth, Eric.", Sam chuckled.

V.

"Huh. Nice place. Isn't this just a little high-class for a reserve?"

Sam parked the Challenger beside a sign marking the end of the School Zone, eye rolling skyward as G kept on his little rant about how the hell some Petty Officer reserve could manage this.

"All right, G? The flowers in the garden as $4.95 at Wal-Mart. The cutesy gate? They sell 'em for less than a pair of jeans. And, cleaning up after yourself is free, dammit."

G cocked his head, one hand on the gate and the other tapping on the brick fence border.

"You and the wife thinking of renovating?", he asked with a cocky grin.

"Shut up or I'll renovate your face. Hey, that the guy's car in the driveway?"

G glanced at the silver G6 parked in Jonathan's terracotta brick driveway, and shook his head.

"No way. PTA bumper sticker? Pink seat covers? I'm betting on the wife. Y'know, unless you secretly live up here or something."

Sam punched G in the shoulder, producing a cry of "Hey! I'm delicate!" before they headed up the home's idyllic steps.

Muffled shouts leaked out from behind the sealed windows.

"Hey, Sam? Who else is on your PTA?"

VI.

"Well, you certainly look like a sight to be sorry for, dear.", Hetty pointed out, tapping Kensi's shoulder with her PDA.

"Take it out of my paycheck, I don't care.", she grumbled back, already irritable and tired without another one of the Ops Manager's infamous pep talks.

"Well, Miss Blye, in the interest of my job, I cannot just have two agents out in the field while one mopes about here like some...junkie. Is there perhaps a matter you might like to bring up with Mr. Getz?"

"No! Why the hell does everybody think I'm obsessed with Nate? Is this another fricken' head game?" she shouted, suddenly raging angry at the mention of his name, the memory of Nate's promise they'd get serious about the dates, the cold fury of watching him pinned to the Autopsy drawers, obviously getting serious with someone else. And the same boiling anger that had her made by an ever-charming druglord when she'd been too busy glaring angrily at young couples out on the marina.

"No, I assure you it's not. However, perhaps learning to deal with these internal conflicts in a...shall I say more productive manner would also do you some good in the field. You never know when you'll have to collaborate with someone who's

betrayed you.", Hetty said knowingly.

VII.

Sam booted down the door, brandishing his gun at a colorful arrangement of crime scene tape and blood-spattered ceramic fragments.

"NCIS! We're federal agents!", he shouted into an empty, hauntingly clean hallway.

"Clear.", G called, stepping out from behind a cluster of decorative palm trees hiding the kitchen from view.

"He likes to decorate.", G added, leading Sam into the kitchen.

"Good relationship with his wife and kid. There's what, field trip forms, pictures, newsletters, all this crap.", Sam sifted through a mess of papers on the kitchen table.

Loud footsteps interrupted the agents, causing Sam's hand to slide right to his gun.

"Whoa. We're on the same side here.", a young officer said calmly, holding out an LAPD badge.

"Officer Lucas Hamel. I'm here with the Drug Task Force. Uh, should I call my boss or what?"

VIII.

Kensi drove up the street in a rented (read: stolen from the OSP's garage) motorcycle, he breath feeling hot against the helmet's face shield.

Draining the office's coffee supply had helped a little bit, though she still wasn't really feeling up for a fight. She'd forced Eric (under threat of losing a few toes) to give her the vic's address, hoping there would be something for her to find while Sam and G followed up on the other lead.

She laughed dryly as she parked the bike beside the boys' Challenger. _Okay, Kensi, Slow Day._

The house's door was conveniently missing, and she could see a little of the inside, which looked like an over-sensationalized CSI set.

"Dammit.", she muttered, jogging up the steps.

"Sam? G? Hey, guys?", she called, kicking past a collection of wooden shards.

"What are you doing here? Aaron said there wasn't anybody coming that wasn't his friends."

Kensi whirled to face the voice, bringing her face to face with a young woman, thinner and several inches shorter than she was.

"Aaron said there wasn't no girlfriends coming.", the woman whispered, the knife at her side slowly rising.

IX.

Callen kicked at a box of Crayolas on the floor.

"Wait, Drug Unit? This guy was dealing?", he asked suddenly, leaning against the table with his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah. I thought you guys would know. He was selling to the Navy, I mean.", Lucas offered, relaxing and glancing over at Sam, catching his eye before Lucas shifted back to Callen.

"Selling to the Navy? What kind of stuff we talking, here, weed?", Sam added, frowning at the officer.

"Nah. That's too easy to g- I mean, he was dealing in bigger stuff. Prescription Pills. Y'know, Oxycontin and Ritalin mostly Giving it to seamen on layover.", Lucas told them.

"Designer drugs going to a bunch of dirty sailors. What's happened to the world?", G joked, grinning at the officer.

"Is this in our jurisdiction or-", the officer began, suddenly cut off by a loud cry from outside.

X.

Sam and Callen raced for the door, guns drawn, with Lucas barely behind them.

Kensi stood with her gun pointed towards a too-small woman with disheveled hair and hollow eyes, her hands locked around a blood-stained kitchen knife.

"Look, miss, I don't want to shoot you. I really don't. So just put the knife down and I'm gonna put my gun away.", Kensi said, her voice wavering between diplomatic and utterly pissed off.

"Crap.", Sam grumbled, moving to cover Kensi's left as G slinked in behind her.

Lucas burst out of the house, frowning at the woman with both hands on his sidearm.

"Aaron?", she asked, returning the glare, "Who the hell are these people?"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3-

I.

Hetty knocked lightly on Nate's office door, careful not to disturb him. There were times when that was the right tactic, and other times when subtlety was absolutely necessary.

"Mr. Getz? May I come in?", she asked softly, treading as though this were a room rigged with bombs.

"Look, Hetty, I have like, ten psych clearances to sign off on and I'm waiting on the airline to send back confirmation on my flight to Orlando. Can this wait?", he replied, gesturing toward the folders strewn over his desk.

"Oh, of course it can wait. Just like Agent Kelly's mother's heart surgery can wait.", their ops manager countered dryly.

"Hetty..."

"To quote that charming newsman, I am going to ask the hard questions, Nate."

Nate looked up from the papers to his boss with a semi-irritated glare.

"What is going on between you and Miss Blye?"

II.

"Aaron? Though your name was Lucas.", G said, tapping his fingers on the trigger.

"You were pretty convincing, too.", Sam added, trying to mentally piece together the murder.

_Great. Played Again,_ Kensi thought, internally sighing as she shook the hair out of her eyes.

"I said who the hell are these people?", the woman raged, gripping the knife even tighter.

Lucas stayed silent, his gun trained on her.

"Mrs. Cornell," he began evenly, drawing a sharp breath.

"I need you to listen to me. I need you to put the knife down and go with these people. They're gonna get you all cleaned up, then...then we're gonna get everything sorted out, okay?"

Mrs. Cornell turned to the young officer with a look of pure, vengeful, evil.

"No. It's all on you, boy, the damn seamen and the cops. And my Husband!"

She slashed at air, carving out a thin slice on the sleeve of Kensi's jacket.

"Ma'am, please.", Lucas said, in the same coldly disaffected tone he had used earlier. "Don't do that."

"I'll Do it like ya did it to Johnny, huh?", she laughed, bringing her knife closer to Kensi's chest.

III.

"Look, Hetty, there's fine line between being nosy and being an ass, dammit." Nate felt whatever reservations he might have had fade at the thought of Kensi's fit over something he'd considered so small and insignificant. Sheesh, it was just a kiss with the coroner. Not like Kensi's little games with sleazy Renko were any different.

Was it fair at all that Kensi expected his total commitment when she practically ran around HQ acting like she could have her pick of whose pants she'd be in that night? He got the whole "liberated woman" thing (you would too if you'd been raised by Delores Getz) but he'd done nothing she wouldn't have. And he was dealing with it.

He returned Hetty's surprised gaze, a newfound venom leaking into his voice.

"So just let me live my life and do my job. You didn't hire me just so you could have your own personal gossip mill."

IV.

Lucas fired with deadly accuracy, barely giving an inch to the recoil as they watched Mrs. Cornell topple to the ground like a tower of blocks.

Her blood spattered over the front of G's shirt, making even his eyes widen.

Lucas stepped forward to kick away the knife, nodding curtly as Sam's weapon dropped to his side. Suddenly, the cold-hearted assassin he'd been seconds later melted away, replaced by the same newbie Kensi remembered from the last night.

"Holy shit. I-oh man. You guys could've gotten in, right? Oh, man.", he sputtered, looking down at the bloody mess at his feet.

"I'll call the van.", Sam muttered, glancing over a G, who was studying Lucas with interest.

"And I'll take our old buddy Lucas in.", his partner agreed

V.

Hetty greeted her team with a small tip of her teacup, too engrossed in paperwork to noticed Kensi's ripped jacket and the blood over the front of G's shirt, not to mention their guest.

"Whoa. You guys' office kicks LAPD's ass all over the yard...", he said, drinking in the bustling mid-morning scene.

'Yeah. We have connections.", G told him casually. "Hey, Dom! Take our friend here downstairs and have Nate talk to him for a bit."

"Um, wait. Am I under arrest? Should I call my boss?", Lucas protested.

"Nah. Arresting you would cost us too much. We just need some info, then you go and it's totally off the record." G spoke like he was telling Lucas where the vending machine was.

Dom jumped from his seat. "Um, this way, sir."

VI.

The locker room was unnaturally quiet at this hour, the rhythmic early-morning melody of slamming locker doors gone as agents were either in the field of goofing around with Eric's toys.

G threw his locker open and dug through, coming up with a wrinkled, yet mostly clean light brown t-shirt. He had no hesitations tossing the bloody one in the pile, treating Kensi to a full on view of his toned abs and chest._ Yummy._

She'd always considered what it might have been like to be with G, but she just kept coming back to a Mr and Mrs Smith movie poster with her as Angelina. All that sneaking around, gunfights in the living room, and glitzy trips to romantic Paris.

Really, once you got over the Angelina part, it wasn't half bad.

Kensi folded the ripped jacket into the bottom shelf of the locker (yes, she used shelves) and looked over to G, who was checking himself in the so-clean-it-sparkles mirror over the room's Italian-import sink.

"Sooooo, Kensi.", he began, brushing a hand through his hair.

"Huh?"

"There something going on? Like, something with our government sanctioned psychobabbler?"

Kensi shrugged. G had known about her and Nate since they'd started...whatever they did. He'd been perfectly okay with it, but had given Nate all the standard big brother-ish warnings, most of which he'd probably copied off Chuck Norris jokes.

"What, you lost a bet? Sorry, G, there will be no signing Nate up for a commercial about safe sex.", she said bitterly, not quite caring if he got the hint or not.

"He got you pregnant? I'm gonna-"

VII.

"Um, can I have a drink?" Lucas tapped on the two-way glass of the interrogation room, snapping Dom out of his semi-conscious coffee-sipping stage.

"I don't know...I'll go see.", Dom told the glass, not quite sure of the rules when it came to maybe murderers and maybe crooked cops. He sprang up to ask. Maybe and agent would be right outside the door.

Instead, Dom found Nate, casually drinking from a Dixie cup of bourbon, an overflowing folder in his arms.

"Uh, Nate? Can I um, are we allowed to give the guys drinks?", he asked quietly, not bothering to question why Nate was drinking alcohol on the clock. Maybe it was normal around here.

"He can get a drink when I'm done.", the psychologist replied curtly, entering the room without a second look at Dom.

"Oh man, you cannot believe how long I've been waiting. Sheesh. Okay, so how's this work,do you question me or do I fill out a bunch of forms?"

Nate rolled his eyes.

"I ask you questions. Like this one, what the hell is going on?"

Lucas shrugged nonchalantly.

"Look, you guys took me in. Do I get a lawyer?"

VIII.

Eric's fingers tapped over the keyboard, his head bobbing along happily to the mixtape Jack, the OSP's latest addition to the techie family had popped into their intercom system. Jack was a good kid.

Sam had asked him to run a search on some guy named Lucas Hamel an LAPD cop, if the records in front of him were the right ones. There'd been seven hundred Lucas Hamels in California, two hundred in the LA area, fifty in the right age range, and three working in law enforcement. But he was pretty sure he had the right one.

Eric took mental notes, picking which information was important enough to text to Sam.

Lucas was born in Michigan, moved to LA with his brother and dad at thirteen. Graduated from the Academy with mediocre grades. Nothing remarkable. No kids, no wife, no naughty high school senior prom afterparty pictures. A boring facebook profile listing mostly current co-workers as friends. As far as harmless went, this guy was the height of it.

He scrolled past another page of records, tapping his foot impatiently. There couldn't be anything usable about the guy...

"Bingo!"

IX.

"Shawty got Low, Low, Low, Low." Sam's phone sung the familiar club anthem, making the ex-SEAL glare at it in disgust. He had no idea what his kids found so funny about racking up download charges on his phone and switching the ringtones to the most embarrassing, inappropriate teenage top-40 crap on the air.

"Never pegged you for a rap guy.", the coroner, beside Mrs. Cornell with a clipboard holding the standard forms, chuckled.

"This ain't rap. LL Cool J, that's rap. I don't know what the hell this is.", he replied, opening the text from Eric.

"Yeah. My dad likes that guy." the coroner checked her pupils, shaking her hair out of the way for a closer look.

Sam scrolled past the To/From/CC/BCC headers and down to the point.

Their Lucas guy had a brother, Johnathan Hamel, who'd been killed working undercover on the drug unit, date of death February 29th, 2002. His father had been locked up in rehab for alcoholism for the past six years after, and he'd followed in Johnny's footsteps. Lucas had put it for seven separate transfers to the undercover Squad, with just as many denials.

Sam studied the date. 2002 hadn't been a leap year.

His head whipped back toward the house and he speed dialed Eric.

"Hey, man? I want all Johnathan Hamel's know Aliases. Including the last one he used for an op."

X.

"No, I am not pregnant!", Kensi shouted, immediately regretting it when one of the cameras swerved her way.

"No, God, just, yuck, no!", she added.

G sighed. "Are you sure? Like did you take a test and everything?", he breathed, edging closer to Kensi on the room's polished wooden benches.

"Hell, yes. And-and I wouldn't get pregnant with Nate. Jesus, I actually want my future children to be pretty, G!", she giggled, suddenly overwhelmed by the ridiculousness of the situation.

"I thought you had a thing for Nate?", he asked, catching on her last comment.

"Yeah.", Kensi grumbled, toying with the frayed cuffs on her shirt.

G squeezed her shoulders and smiled.

"Okay, Whatever you need to work out, Kenz. But you were joking about the safe sex thing, right? Because if he gave you something I will-"

"Oh for God's sake, G. It's nothing. Just...I'm just gonna sort everything out.", she told him with a pointed glare.

He squeezed harder, ruffling her hair a bit. _Damn that caring guy charm, _Kensi thought. _Gets me every fucking time._

"You're sure that Nate didn't do anything bad to you. He didn't hit you or freeze your bank account or steal your car, right?", Callen ticked off the arrest worthy actions of other ex-boyfriends, grinning with the memory of each one.

"No." Kensi shook him off and studied herself in the mirror, watching G's grin fade in the reflection.

"Then what happened?", he asked again, his voice taking a sharper tone, the one he used in interrogations.

"Remember the coroner thing Nate had?", Kensi began, debating whether to follow through with the rest of it.

"Yeah, her name's, uh, Rose, right?"

Kensi nodded, facing the door.

"You get the invite to her damn baby shower yet?", she finished, her voice wavering as she slammed the door, making a hollow thud echo through the room.

* * *

**Uh-Oh! Bad Nate! And what's Johnathan Hamels connection to all this?**

**Plz Review! **


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